Recovery from hip and knee arthroplasty: Patients' perspective on pain, function, quality of life, and well-being up to 6 months postoperatively.
P. Salmon, G. Hall, D. Peerbhoy
Mar 1, 2001
Citations
188
Citations
Quality indicators
Journal
Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation
Full text
Semantic Scholar
Key Takeaway Key Takeaway: Knee arthroplasty improves life quality and mood as much as hip arthroplasty, but pain and function improve less.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE To provide a more detailed description from patients' perspectives than is yet available of recovery from hip and knee arthroplasty and to use this information to test 2 assumptions about recovery from these procedures: that recovery from knee arthroplasty, as assessed by patients, routinely reaches the level achieved by hip arthroplasty; and that fatigue is prolonged after major orthopedic surgery. DESIGN A cohort study. SETTING University teaching hospitals. PARTICIPANTS Consecutive patients undergoing hip (n = 107) or knee (n = 53) arthroplasty. INTERVENTIONS Unilateral hip or knee arthroplasty. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Standardized self-rated measurements of pain, function, quality of life, and well-being from preoperatively to 6 months follow-up. RESULTS Pain and function improved significantly less after knee arthroplasty than after hip arthroplasty, but the 2 procedures led to similar improvements in life evaluation, mood, and subjective health. Fatigue was only transiently increased. CONCLUSION The findings were inconsistent with both assumptions. Nevertheless, despite poorer recovery in pain and function, patients receiving knee arthroplasty felt that life had improved as much as did patients with hip arthroplasty. Detailed information about how major joint arthroplasty in routine practice affects patients' lives can be used to advise patients and clinicians and can invalidate influential, but inaccurate, assumptions.